There Was A Life
by Tolakasa
Summary: Future, post season 8. OC POV. The staff at Copper Hills Retirement Home has been trying to figure out the mystery of Mr. Novak's visitor for years. Mention of character death.


**There Was A Life**

"No patio trip this week, huh?" Teresa asked her patient, double-checking the cast on his leg and straightening the sheet over him. She should have been finished with his bath an hour ago, but that stupid staff meeting had run long. One of these days, she was going to figure out why Mr. Novak's visitor always came at such an awkward hour. Copper Hills' visiting hours were all day, until eight or so in the evening—and he stayed that long, without fail—but showing up at precisely 2:15, _every_ week, was just kinda...weird. Why not 2:00? Why not 2:30? Hell, why not 4:27? Didn't the man ever just get stuck in traffic or have a meeting run long or get caught behind an extreme couponer in the checkout line?

Mr. Novak didn't answer the light chatter she always kept up while working with him, even as she eased his arms into a sweater to ward off the chill that his hospital gown couldn't. He never did. Oh, his vocal cords still worked—the nightmare screams provided plenty of evidence of that—but he never spoke to anyone on the staff beyond a word or two to let them know what he needed, and even then, it had to be something he couldn't communicate otherwise. He spoke to his visitor, though of course she didn't eavesdrop. She'd actually heard him address his visitor by name, but it was an unusual name and didn't match the name printed on his approved visitors list, so she was never able to remember it. She was frankly _terrible_ with names, but she was from Alabama originally; she could _honey_ and _darling_ and _sweetheart_ people to death to cover for it, and the Yankees just thought she was being cutely Southern instead of insanely rude.

Not with Mr. Novak, though. Somehow, it seemed wrong to call him "hon." Disrespectful, maybe, all things considered.

Today, he seemed a little more distant than usual. Those hazel eyes were fixed on a point somewhere beyond his blackout curtains—the thousand-yard stare of a man trapped in a replay of memories, rather than him just ignoring the world. Then again, that wasn't unusual for him during the first couple of weeks after a surgery. This time, it was his tibia, at least, not another femur fracture. The orthopedist was concerned about possible re-breakage, though, so he'd slapped Mr. Novak into a cast that reached nearly to his hip, with strict orders not to let him out of bed until told otherwise. That meant hospital gowns and sponge baths and a catheter to go with the more common indignities of his assorted conditions.

The blank stare could just be a defense mechanism, a way to ignore the fact that a stranger had to have her hands all over him in such an intimate way; quite a normal reaction, actually, and one she preferred to the leering dirty-old-man act that she got from about half of her bedridden male patients. It could also be his pain telltale—but to verify that, he'd have to ask for drugs, and the one thing he _never_ asked for was pain medication. Never mind that the way his body was falling apart, he had to be in agony. The bone pain alone would have made most men beg for _any_ relief.

Anybody else who'd just had an internal fixation would be on some kind of narcotic drip as a matter of course, but Mr. Novak's various conditions combined to give him atypical reactions to just about every medication in the Physician's Desk Reference. Most narcotics sent him into nightmare fits; NSAIDs were out of the question because of his liver damage; aspirin had given him a bleeding ulcer after two doses. "You'd let me know if you needed something to take the edge off, wouldn't you?" she asked anyway, double-checking to make sure the tail of the sweater wasn't bunched behind his back and that the pillows were properly placed to be supportive. Part of the reason she'd been assigned to him was that he actually reacted to her, better than he did to any of the other nurses. Hell, the weekenders couldn't even get a nod out of him, and that was on a good day.

Not so much as a flicker of an eyelash. Even _she_ couldn't get an answer out of him when it came to meds.

She spread a blanket over him, making sure it was tucked securely around his feet, especially the bare toes of the casted leg. Nobody as famine-victim thin as Mr. Novak could handle cold well (hence the sweater). Copper Hills, despite its attempts at toning down the institutional white and creating a homey atmosphere, was still a medical facility, and medical facilities were _always_ cold. Plus somebody—she wasn't sure if it was one of their penny-pinching managers or just a clueless custodian—kept turning down the thermostat in his room, and she didn't always catch it. "All ready for your Friday afternoon excitement?" she asked, smoothing his hair back from his face. She made a mental note to put him on the barber's schedule for Tuesday. His last nurse had neglected his hair dreadfully; already white and brittle, it had been a mess when Teresa took over, not cut in over a year. She had no idea how long he'd kept it when he was healthy, whether his previous nurse had thought he wanted it long or what, but neither he nor his visitor had protested the haircut, so now, at least, it wasn't causing problems for any of them.

The hazel stare shifted, and for a moment his eyes locked with hers and she knew he actually _saw_ her—and then he looked away and it was gone again.

Of course, with Mr. Novak, _any_ response was a victory. That was practically a _thank you, you can leave now_.

A lot of the other nurses just didn't like dealing with him, but truth was, he was Teresa's favorite patient. He caused a lot less trouble than some of the others once you understood what _not_ to do, and though the others griped about the extra trouble he caused, he wasn't any more of a pain than some of the dementia patients. Less, in a lot of cases; he at least understood _why_ he was here, that he was sick and needed the extra care, and didn't constantly cry or beg to go home. As long as you didn't trip his triggers, he didn't fight you, either. Since he needed physical care more than he needed mental, it made perfect sense—to her, at least—that he was here rather than in a mental hospital.

And, to be honest, he reminded her of her brother, who was about the same age, and who hadn't quite come home from his war, either. Terry's problems had been more straightforward, though: shrapnel in the brain. Mr. Novak's damage was more...unusual.

"Lights bright or dim?" she asked. His gaze flicked toward her again—the equivalent of a shrug. "I'll dim them, then, at least until he gets here. Maybe you can get a little sleep. Nancy said you didn't get a lot last night." Nancy had said a lot more than that at shift change, but for some reason, she seemed to take it personally that Mr. Novak couldn't seem to make it through a full night without waking up screaming. On top of that, she _really_ resented the orders from on high that somebody had to stay within easy reach of his room in case of nightmares. The managers had decided that if nothing could keep Mr. Novak from having nightmares, at least the disturbance to the other patients could be minimized by waking him up at the first scream.

Still no reaction. She clipped his call button onto his sweater cuff and tucked it into one of his burn-scarred hands. Ugly scars, those; they reached halfway to his elbows, like he'd thrust his arms into the heart of a bonfire. Explosion, maybe, an IED or something, like the one that had gotten Terry. Not the only scars he had, not by a long shot, but definitely the worst. "Remote?" she asked. He didn't _watch_ TV all that often, but sometimes he would turn it on, usually to one of the rerun channels. She thought maybe it was to drown out noise—in the halls, in his head—but anything was better than watching him sit and stare at the walls like he was trying to will himself dead. TV days were good days.

Today, though, his hand wouldn't close over it, so she set it on the rolling table and parked it where he could reach it and his cup of water and the banana left over from lunch; he still had the manual dexterity to peel a banana, at least, so he'd have a snack if he decided he wanted one. She tucked a fresh box of Kleenex in next to him, in easy reach of his other hand—not on the table, just in case somebody moved it and forgot to put it back. The lung damage—possibly smoke inhalation from the same fire that had burned him—meant that he coughed a lot, and his coughing tended to bring up blood. "All right, then, Mr. Novak, all set for now. You know the drill." That got her a nod, though this time his eyes didn't move. He _was_ having a good day. Hell, for five days post-surgery, he was having a _magnificent_ day. His visitor should be happy.

Teresa dialed the lights down and headed back towards her station near the east dayroom. It was actually not on this hall; this was the post-surgery hall, where all the recovering patients were put so the doctors wouldn't have to dirty themselves by walking through more of the building than usual. Patients here were normally the responsibility of the post-op nurses, but Mr. Novak reacted so well to her—and the lazy-ass post-ops reacted so _badly_ to some of his more peculiar needs, like the blackout curtains—that an exception had been made.

She glanced at her watch. 1:58. She might have enough time to get Mr. Novak's paperwork caught up before his visitor showed up. _If_ nobody bothered her.

With anybody else, she'd hope that they'd be running late. Not that man, though. _Never_.

And it wasn't like this file was a _simple_ one. Files were never simple when somebody other than the patient had power of attorney, and when you considered just how wrecked Mr. Novak's health was... The lung damage and the burns and the advanced osteoporosis were just the tip of the iceberg, really. He was perpetually anemic despite iron supplements and the occasional blood transfusion, making him as pale as Dracula; the permanent tinge of jaundice was a testament to liver damage that no test had ever been able to pin down; his pancreatic functions came and went on a whim, as did his ability to keep down solid food; and judging from his creatinine levels over the last six months, one of his kidneys was debating going offline. There was the staring and the silence that bordered on catatonia, the semi-insomnia and the nightmares, and you couldn't put him in direct sunlight without triggering something between a panic attack and a psychotic break. Indirect light, like the east dayroom in the afternoon, was okay, but put him where he could even _see_ a sunbeam... Only his visitor could take him out in the sun without triggering him.

Mr. Novak had all the hallmarks of a severe case of PTSD, but nowhere in this mound of paperwork—either in the hard copy or in the computer files—was there a single indication that he was a veteran. Not even a letter of rejection to a request for assistance from the VA. But what the hell else could have possibly done all this to a man who, according to the birthdate in his file, wasn't even forty?

That was the one thing the staff agreed on, actually: Mr. Novak was _definitely_ a veteran, no matter _what_ the file said. (Not that they _gossiped_, exactly, but he was the only patient in this building under seventy-five, and the old people were boring.) That had been established early on, well before Teresa came here, the first time he'd broken a bone so badly it needed surgery. When Mr. Novak had one of those panic attacks, he forgot just how fragile his bones were, and when the paramedics had tried to put him into an ambulance for transport, they'd _all_ found out, the hard way, that he'd gotten some _serious_ hand-to-hand training at some point. He'd wound up with five breaks in the legs and two in the arms, and two more ambulances had been required: one for him once he was sedated and strapped down, and one for the paramedics who'd driven the first one. Breakroom legend had it that one of them had been hurt badly enough that she'd had to quit.

Everything beyond that, however, was pure speculation, down to what branch he'd served in. The sole tattoo he had wasn't any help; it was a freaking _pentagram_, of all the things. Not exactly the Marine Corps seal or a Navy anchor.

Although it certainly explained why you couldn't use the m-word—_magic_, that was—around him. Maybe he'd gotten caught up in some kind of cult.

She zipped through the checklist, marking items off—lunch, bath, teeth, hair, fresh linens, fresh gown, cath check, patient comfort, meds not applicable. Mr. Novak was a mystery, but at least his medical condition gave them some hints about his past. Not so with his visitor. He was about the same age, perhaps a little older, and claimed to be Mr. Novak's brother (which, she supposed, also made _him_ Mr. Novak, but to be honest, the visitor didn't _seem_ like a Mr. Novak). Nobody argued about that, at least not to his face. The truth was, though, there was no absolutely _no_ resemblance between them, even if you accounted for the changes wrought by Mr. Novak's illness. And the way his visitor reacted—or _over_reacted—to things... A full quarter of the staff had _lovers_ in the breakroom betting pool on the Novaks' actual relationship status. Another third—mostly the vets and relatives of vets—thought perhaps they had fought together and the visiting Mr. Novak was lying about their relationship in order for the resident Mr. Novak to use his insurance, since he inexplicably didn't qualify for normal veterans' assistance.

2:14. Teresa jotted down a few last notes, looked up, and there he was.

No one ever _saw_ him come in; he never checked in with the receptionist, never passed any of their half-assed security, never showed up on any of the cameras, didn't even seem to have a car, but without fail, at 2:15 every Friday afternoon, he would suddenly be standing in the east dayroom, always in the same rumpled suit and straggly tie underneath the same trenchcoat, be it July or January. She'd been trying to catch him on arrival ever since she'd been assigned Mr. Novak as one of her patients. It was pointless. Mr. Novak's visitor might as well be a magician (there was that m-word again, dammit). She could stand there staring at the door starting at 2:14, and it wouldn't matter, because at 2:15, he would just _be_ there.

He gave the dayroom a quick once-over, but when he didn't see Mr. Novak parked in his usual Friday-afternoon spot near the patio doors, he came straight for her station. He knew her, of course; she'd been Mr. Novak's primary nurse for over a year now. His blue eyes—a blue that was _nothing_ like Mr. Novak's hazel—were dark and suspicious. "Where is—"

"He's in his room," she answered, hoping that didn't mean what she thought it meant. Mr. Novak had had enough surgeries that his visitor knew the routine. "He slipped on Sunday and broke his right tibia."

Something dark—anger? worry?—twisted his face. "Why wasn't I notified?" he demanded.

"Nobody called you?" Whether the man was Mr. Novak's brother, his lover, his war buddy, or had just picked him up off the street, he _was_ the emergency contact and had power of attorney. The paperwork was filed neatly in Mr. Novak's chart, on the inside of the front cover, _stapled_ there because it was needed so often. She was going to _kill_ whoever had forgotten to make that call. The liability issues alone, not to mention the _ethics_ of doing major surgery on a man who wasn't competent to give informed consent—

"No," he said, and if the look in his eyes meant anything, she would not want to be the weekend nurse who'd overlooked that notification. "I was _not_ called. He is not supposed to go into surgery without my presence."

Not supposed to? She was surprised they'd even managed to _get_ Mr. Novak into surgery without his visitor's help. Just like he could handle sunlight when the visitor took him out in it, he didn't panic as badly with ambulances and hospitals as long as his visitor was with him.

"How serious was it?"

"No more than usual," she replied, trying to put as much reassurance in her voice as possible. By the cold blue stare she got in return, it wasn't working. Then again, there was no such thing as a non-serious broken bone in Mr. Novak's case. A broken _finger_ two years ago had spawned an embolism that nearly killed him. "But he's still on the post-op hall."

"I see." He was still angry, but at least the anger wasn't aimed at _her_. "I will require the number of your superior—"

Teresa rifled through the file, looking for the weekend notes. "You'll be wanting to complain about Mrs. Sparks. She had weekend duty." She cheerfully gave him the info on a card. She had _no_ problems throwing Sparksy under the bus. The woman was a health hazard. "And this is her supervisor's name, _and_ our general manager's."

He gave her a look that she suspected meant he knew exactly why she was giving him all this. "Thank you," he said, very solemnly, and the cards disappeared into the trenchcoat. "Which room?"

"I'll show you." Visitors were supposed to be guided to the post-op halls. Couldn't have people wandering about brightening the surgical patients' days. "Are you going to take him out?"

"Out?"

"Of Copper Hills. Because of this."

Judging by his expression, he hadn't actually considered that an option. "Most likely not," he said. He'd recovered his usual composure now, a lack of obvious emotion that made him hellaciously difficult to read. "But it is not out of the realm of possibility. If he had panicked, he could have done considerable damage to himself."

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were out of earshot from the dayroom. "Mention a lawsuit anyway, even if you can't afford one," she said in a low voice. "That'll get management's attention. And once they hear 'lawsuit,' believe me, _nobody_ will _ever_ forget to notify you again."

He frowned, as if he didn't understand her, but finally just said somberly, "Thank you for the advice. I will take it into consideration."

Somebody had shut the fire doors to post-op, so she had to use her badge to get them open. The post-ops must have already set their brains to _weekend_, letting the doors close during visiting hours. Idiots. "You know—" He gave her a suspicious look. "If he's a vet, you could probably get him in at a VA facility. One of them is bound to have some doctors with clearance to know what really happened and treat him more appropriately—"

"Thank you, but no. This is—safer."

_Safer?_ What the hell? "So—he _is_ a vet?"

"He has fought in many battles, yes."

"And one did _this_ to him?"

"Yes." His voice had gone flat. Trauma of his own, maybe? If they _were_ war buddies... "We were fighting to seal the gates of Hell and Hea— That doesn't matter. His brother died." Pain and sadness made him look almost human for once. "They were very close."

So he really _wasn't_ Mr. Novak's brother, or he would have said "_our_ brother." Plus trauma _and_ grief, in combination, would explain Mr. Novak's mental state, at least. And a battle so bad that the visitor compared it to storming Hell— Mr. Novak was probably lucky to be in the shape he was in.

Come to think of it, that would explain his overreaction to ambulances and hospitals too. There was no way he'd recovered from those initial injuries as much as he had without spending significant time in a hospital. Months. Maybe longer.

_You know, if he's not actual family, if Mr. Novak's condition was bad enough, they might not have let him visit. Maybe that's why he brought him here and not to the VA._ That was—remarkable, to say the least. Copper Hills was way more expensive than a VA hospital would be. Most people would have let their wallets make that decision, even for family members.

Maybe she should thank Sparksy for fucking up. Without that opening, she would have never found any of this out, and this was going to make it much easier for her to take care of Mr. Novak properly.

Speaking of which... "Here we are," she said brightly, pushing open the door. Mr. Novak was, of course, right where she'd left him, but his eyes were closed, and he looked almost peaceful in the gloom created by the blackout curtains. She found the dimmer dial and upped the light a bit, just enough that his visitor wouldn't break his neck walking across the darkened room.

The visitor just stood there for a moment, silently watching. "I swore I would take care of him," he said finally. "I swore to his—on all that I hold sacred that I would take care of him. This—place is the best I can do."

"No one doubts that, sir," she said. Here, at least, she was on solid ground. He wasn't the first person she'd seen beating himself up over having to put a loved one in a long-term facility.

"They were never meant to survive without each other," he said, in a choked voice that was at odds with his normal flat precision. "Not this long. I never thought he _could_ survive this long without—"

"People surprise you."

He blinked, as if that had never occurred to him. "I suppose they do," he said softly.

"May I ask something?" He nodded. "Why does he react so badly to sunlight?"

Agony flickered across that stoic face. "When the gates shut— There was a surge of golden light. Pure div—pure power. I suppose sunlight looks the same to him now." He looked at Mr. Novak again. "I pulled him out, but not before he was—damaged."

Golden light. Some kind of experimental energy weapon, maybe? "That's what happened to his hands?"

"The burns were just the visible injuries. It sapped much of the life from him."

Huh. If "sapping the life" was a non-classified way of referring to something like, say, radiation sickness, that might actually explain the heavy systemic damage and the bizarre catalog of symptoms and side effects—but it was a terrifying thought, that somewhere out there was a weapon that could turn a perfectly healthy young soldier into a decrepit old man.

Or maybe, considering the pentagram tattoo and his reaction to the m-word— Nah.

He added, in a soft and vaguely guilty voice, "I couldn't save his brother. He was caught up in it before I could— It was too late. I _should_ have, I should have realized what was going to happen, but— I did not." Then, bitterly, "I can't even help him."

That she couldn't leave alone. "Sir—Mr. Novak—"

"Castiel."

Okay, Teresa _knew_ that wasn't the name on the visitor list—she was pretty sure that one started with a _J_—but this wasn't the time. "That's not true. You _do_ help." He looked at her, tilting his head a bit. Odd mannerism. "I see it when you visit. He looks forward to seeing you. He's—better—on Fridays."

His eyes darkened. "Thank you for saying so," he said quietly, obviously not believing a word of it, and walked across the room, that silly trenchcoat flapping. He pulled the curtains open, letting in the glow of daylight, though he left the blinds closed to shut out the treacherous sunbeams themselves. Then he stepped over to the bed and placed his hand on one fragile shoulder.

Mr. Novak's eyes opened, and they cleared, became alive, focusing on his visitor as he came out of his dark little world. "Hey, Cas," he said, in a voice as frail and wasted as the rest of him, and he smiled. For a heartbeat, Teresa could almost _see_ the man he must have been once, before his strength and health had been torn away from him. The man he should_ still_ be, handsome and strong and tall, instead of this collapsing, half-dead wreck.

Castiel's answering smile was sad, almost painful to see, and when he spoke, it was the only time his voice sounded really human. "Hello, Sam."

_**the end**_


End file.
